The Impact Of Privacy On The Workplace Field Of Human Resource Management

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

* In today’s world of fast-developing technology, in which the click of mouse can dispense a plethora of information, privacy for job seekers and employees is a significant issue. One type of privacy issue in the workplace occurs when a company gathers or circulates private or personal information about employees or candidates for employment.

Workplace privacy is one of the biggest issues facing businesses today. Do you feel like you are being watched all the time, all your e-mails being read, and every key stroke is being monitored by your boss? Some people feel this way and that is why privacy in the workplace is a problem with many businesses today. Employees feel like they are not being trusted, or feel the company invades on their personal privacy, or violates their fourth amendment rights. On the other hand many businesses have many federal and state laws to follow, and must keep their assets safe, and their employees. Technology makes communications of all sorts as easy as a few pushes of a button. This technology makes it

This section of the employee handbook is provided as a guideline for employees to understand the company policy and procedures regarding privacy in the workplace. While this section cannot address every possible scenario that may occur, the general policy will serve as a basis of understanding the key workplace issues and employee privacy. This section addresses privacy issues related to personal background information, off-work activities, and the corporate policy on the use of electronic monitoring. These privacy policies are designed to both provide a clear guideline for employees on the difference between job related and personal privacy. The policies are designed to create a standard set of

The most common form of an invasion, to employee privacy rights is email. With the massive use of computers, email has become the biggest communication tool of choice in the workplace. The concern of employers has grown tremendously with the use of email in the workplace. Employers' concern is that, employees can waste time by sending and receiving email for personal use, and they may provide easy access for hackers to entry their computer system. Employers can monitor an employee computer activity to ensure productivity in the workplace. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2006) states, "Unfortunately, if an employee uses a company computer for email use, the employee employer has the right to review the contents of his or her email."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse went over computer and workstation monitoring, email monitoring, telephone monitoring, mobile device monitoring, audio and video monitoring, GPS tracking, postal mail and social media monitoring. Employers are able to see what is on your screen, how much time you spend away from your computer and how many keystrokes per hour each employer does. Employers are able to discretely monitor employees with certain computer equipment. Employees may not know they are being monitored. Employers can review email content. Even though the message may have an option for marking an email as private, the company may still have access to the email. You should assume that your work emails are not private. Even though you may delete your emails, the company still has access to them also.

As much as a company should not invade the rights of its employees , it has the equal responsibility of ensuring that its privacy and that of its employees are not divulged or used in any personal intent by other employees . According to Nyman (2005 , more companies are being held accountable by employees whose privacy was compromised in the workplace because of what is seen as a lack in its measures to ensure their privacy . Therefore , if employers are being held accountable for such situations , Nyman believes that they should be given enough power to protect themselves from such liabilities

In the United States, billions of emails are sent from any business regarding the business done, and sometimes things that aren’t business at all. I’m talking about things such as company sports, company games, or even company free time. Because of this, many companies’ these days monitor their employees’ emails in order to discourage the use of company time for leisure work. These seemingly random checks can tell the company when and/or how an employee has misused their time and misused the companies’ resources for their own gain. According to Halbert and Ingulli, employers have had a long history of interest in scrutinizing their workforces (Halbert & Ingulli, 2006, p. 87). Today, “spying” on their employees has been made many times easier due to technology. Monitoring emails

With the advancement of technology employers are now able to store access and monitor employees’ actions on company computing systems. In 1986, The Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) was introduced which disallow the intentional interception of “any wire, oral or electronic communication”, it provides an exemption that permits right to monitor employees in the course of business (Beesley, 2012). According to the act, if the employee is using equipment owned by the employer then employer is allowed to monitor an employee’s use of computer or phone for a valid reason. Also, if employer has obtained prior written consent from employee to monitor employee computer usage then they are legally authorized to do so.

This chapter is about privacy. Privacy in the government, or business workplace. The government has a lot to do with the privacy in a work environment. especially dealing with the job market. The Congress established a way that privacy that is known in Privacy Act 1974 that was designed to resolve any type of issues, the conflict between government accountability and individual privacy. The congress created a way to have a private study that it can protect people at work. The introduction tells how employees are scared to open up about their personal issues in a workplace. Another example that they used how some employees would not open up about how much money there are making or salary because it would affect other employees of competition on wages. And some employees would not open about religion, there finance, drinking habits, daily diet and other matters. Employees keep it private because they don’t want their business out in the open. Also, there is trust issues on, you don’t know if you can trust your employee or not. That’s why this chapter basically focuses on the privacy of

"Privacy. There seems to be no legal issue today that cuts so wide a swath through conflicts confronting American society: from AIDS tests to wiretaps, polygraph test to computerized data bases, the common denominator has been whether the right to privacy outweighs other concerns of society…" This quote from Robert Ellis Smith explains, in one sentence, the absolute need to ensure privacy in the workplace. One of the most interesting, yet controversial, areas concerning public personnel is employee privacy. What limits are there to employers’ intrusions into, and control over, employees’ behaviors and personal properties?

Workplace surveillance has become a controversial issue in the workplace environment. The technological surveillance has developed as a necessity, it doesn’t only help in monitoring what the workers’ do, but it also helps to know how they do it. The modern technological development may have helped the employers’ to have an aerial view of the workplace environment, but it has created a controversy between the employees’ and the employer about the employees’ right to privacy being violated. The employees’ believe the act of workplace surveillance to be hateful that violates their right to privacy and liberties. The surveillance at the workplace often effects workers mental health, productivity, future success in their work and their relationship with the employer, despite being a necessity for the employers’ to protect themselves against the liability, many employers’ in the process of achieving efficiency through surveillance mistakenly ruin their relationship with their employees. The workplace surveillance is helpful in improving the performance of workers or it is contributing towards degrading the performance of workers and their work relationships.

It is a common practice especially in industries that have a large number of employees whom they cannot monitor in person. The research will examine computer monitoring as one of the methods which the management uses to monitor employee activity at the workplace. The researcher will examine the advantages of computer monitoring at the workplace in detail in relation to the legal realm, public perception and criticism. Firms store most of their data in the computer database. In fact, many companies rely on computer networks to communicate with its employees, stakeholders and clients.

Privacy in the workplace exists only to a certain extent essentially because the organization has the right to search and seizure their property and the employees which utilize it. Therefore, I believe employees generally are limited to the amount of privacy they have on the job. Generally, much of the equipment, devices, and resources utilized at work are the property of the employer and therefore they have the right to monitor what employees are doing. In essence, employers have every right to invade employee privacy while the employees are utilizing the organization's equipment and resources. Further, employee privacy is limited because essentially employees are trying to safeguard the organization from litigation and the erosion of the organization’s reputation.

In The Los Angeles Times (2013) an article titled, “Tracking workers’ every move can boost productivity,” stated how employers are using surveillance software to monitor employees every movement. Employees are criticizing the monitoring software since it has caused harsher work environment. Employees feel with the monitoring system, employers see them as human machines a way to drive costs down and increase production (Semuels, 2013). Employees are finding that monitoring technology have cost jobs